THE Northern Ireland Secretary, "Sir Patrick Mayhew, last night launched a fierce attack on the Sinn Fein president, Mr Gerry Adams. He also declared that the British government would not be shifted from its efforts to find a lasting peace.
In a debate in the House of Commons, the Northern Secretary condemned the recent blasts in London as "disgusting in their immoral character and horrifying in their scale". Branding the IRA's resumption of hostilities a despicable decision", he denied Mr Adams's claim that British government had reneged on commitments. "We have reneged on no commitment, we have broken no commitment," he insisted.
"The British government in this democracy will not be shifted from its chosen and democratic course by bombs, or by the threat of bombs, or by any variety of violence. The perpetrators of violence themselves should realise that in this democracy they will make no political progress whatsoever by means of violence.
"On the contrary, violence will serve only to harden the minds of ordinary people against what they seek to achieve."
He went on to attack the sickening hypocrisy of Gerry Adams" and to challenge Sinn Fein and the IRA to help remove the obstacles to all party talks. Speaking during the third reading debate on the Northern Ireland (Emergency Provisions) legislation, which renews and amends wide ranging anti terrorism measures, including the power of internment, Sir Patrick Mayhew also urged restraint by loyalist paramilitaries.
He said the bombers should not conclude "that they will succeed in escalating violence, and promoting instability, by provoking terrorists on the loyalist wing to retaliate in kind.
"With sickening hypocrisy, Mr Adams asserts that negotiations frighten this British government. This government has done more to foster inclusive negotiations on a settlement than any government in modern times."
The Ulster Unionist Party leader, Mr David Trimble, called for a "clearer and more forthright" acknowledgment by Labour of the need for the legislation. He insisted the power of internment, to which Labour objects, would only be used in the most extreme circumstances. "But we might be faced with those circumstances."
Mr Trimble said the Sinn Fein IRA leadership was reported in the Dublin newspapers as believing a "short and savage" campaign in England would break the government's will. "We have only seen the first instalment of what might be about to come," he warned.
"There is a very significant and serious risk of a savage campaign. Against that background, it would be criminally irresponsible to forswear the use of the power of internment."
Mr Trimble declared "The bombs that went off in London destroyed the ceasefire, and didn't just destroy that but must also destroy any future ceasefire based on the same hypothesis".
Mr Seamus Mallon of the SDLP said no one had the right or a mandate from the Irish people to say they were killing in the name of the Irish people. "I say to those within the so called republican movement and I use that term because I regard myself as a republican in the true sense of the word, and I say that they have besmirched it to stop telling the great lie to young people in our country.
"Stop propagating that awful untruth that somehow or another it is noble to kill other people for a spurious type of Irish unity that wouldn't be worth the paper it's written on if it was, in effect, obtained by the death of those two people at Canary Wharf and the thousands of other deaths."
The IRA and Sinn Fein had been seen to be "outside the nationalist consensus", Mr Mallon declared.
Shadow Northern Ireland secretary Dr Marjorie Mowlam told the House that Mr John Major's idea for elections and Mr John Hume's idea for a referendum could be combined to find a way forward. "We believe these two ideas could be combined. There could be referenda held both north and south of the Border and a Northern Ireland elective process or indexation to let the people speak, both about the background to the talks and who they want to take part."
Dr Mowlam called for an immediate review of emergency powers legislation in Northern Ireland and the Prevention of Terrorism Act.